St. Vincent with the San Francisco Symphony

Jules Buckley is a Grammy Award–winning artist and orchestrator, arranger, and conductor. He has created bespoke projects with artists including Quincy Jones, Harry Styles, Jacob Collier, Father John Misty, Jon Hopkins, Michael Kiwanuka, Anoushka Shankar, Florence + the Machine, Moses Sumney, Stevie Wonder, and Paul Weller.

Buckley is chief conductor of the Metropole Orkest and creative artist in association with the BBC Symphony. In 2016, he won a Grammy Award for the album Sylva with Snarky Puppy. In 2025, he marked his 25th BBC Proms, collaborating with St. Vincent and the Jules Buckley Orchestra. After working with Harry Styles on the track “Coming Up Roses” from the 2026 album Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally, he collaborates with Styles again this summer, leading the Jules Buckley Orchestra for Styles’s headline London show as part of Southbank Centre’s Meltdown Festival. He makes his San Francisco Symphony debut with this performance.

Arooj Aftab is a Grammy Award–winning artist whose work blends jazz, minimalism, South Asian musical traditions, and avant-pop. 

Aftab’s breakthrough album, Vulture Prince, appeared on Barack Obama’s 2021 summer playlist and earned a Grammy win for the song “Mohabbat.” In 2024, she released her fourth solo album, Night Reign, which received a Grammy nomination for Best Alternative Jazz Album, while its lead single, “Raat Ki Rani,” was nominated for Best Global Music Performance. She has appeared on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and Later… with Jools Holland. She makes her debut at the San Francisco Symphony with this performance.

St. Vincent has been regarded as one of the most innovative and fascinating presences in modern music for nearly 20 years, constantly reinventing her audio and visual personae over the course of a kaleidoscopic catalog and winning six Grammy Awards along the way. This summer, St. Vincent ventures once more into unexplored territory with a first-ever limited run of orchestral performances, and makes her San Francisco Symphony debut with this performance. These special shows see a selection of favorites and deep cuts spanning the St. Vincent discography, brought to life in spellbinding new dimensions with the aid of Grammy Award–winning artist and renowned orchestrator, arranger, and conductor Jules Buckley.

Together, St. Vincent and Buckley forge new sonic worlds from her acclaimed albums, including Marry Me, Actor, Strange Mercy, St. Vincent, Masseduction, Daddy’s Home, and All Born Screaming—an unforgettable evening of unique symphonic reinterpretations of songs from one of modern music’s most eclectic and acclaimed bodies of work.